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Soldier Hollow Time Trial
Soldier Hollow Time Trial
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\r\nBy Justin Freeman
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\r\nOur first week back from our San Diego intensity camp included a number of tests. We had extensive blood work done to make sure our internal chemistry is working. We did a submaximal test on the treadmill. And we spent a couple hours in the strength facility doing some tests designed for us this year by our sport science staff.
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\r\nFor me at least, none of these tests said much. In the past few months my running efficiency at threshold increased, then decreased a bit, while my running in low level one followed the opposite pattern. My results in the unweighted vertical leap improved slightly, but by performance in the weighted vertical leap faded by about a centimeter. On the other hand, the speed I generated on both jumps was up and I sustained near-maximal force for longer, both good indications.
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\r\nIf this sounds a little ambiguous, that’s because it is. Even the best designed laboratory tests can only tell us so much about what kind of shape we’re in. So while looking at long term trends in the pages of numbers two days of tests generated should greatly help us become great in the long run, when I got my results I was anxious to have something more concrete to look at.
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\r\nFortunately, we have that. It’s called the Soldier Hollow Time Trial. It produces one number that neatly summarizes all the others: Lactate tolerance, VO2 max, lactate threshold, pain threshold, leg strength, mental toughness, and desire. We run the Olympic 10 kilometer course, a course so challenging that the ski area is re-routing the trails so that tourist won’t get discouraged (in fact, we have to cut through the brush at one point to stay on the original trail). It’s a well made ski course, which is to say that about a third of the course is gently rolling or flat, one third is climbing, and a third descending. A total climb of well over 1000 feet means that the hills are on average 10% grade, either up or down. This means that the times look more 12 kilometer race times. It also means that your legs take a major beating on the way down the hills, especially if (like all of us) you don’t do much fast run training.
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Justin during the July Soldier Hollow Time Trial
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\r\nThe race feels roughly like this: a kilometer and a half of easy, rolling, running, that always feels slow and under control; a kilometer and a half of grinding climb to the high point of the course, still usually feeling pretty good; a kilometer of very fast downhill running, so that by the bottom you think you are fresh and ready to go; a couple dozen meters of steep uphill that inform you that fresh is the last thing you really are; a kilometer of rolling terrain that feels all uphill; another kilometer of climb that will break you, you might try to look at your watch and figure out split times now but there is too much lactate in your brain to worry about anything but getting to the top of the hill; a couple kilometers of steep downs and long flats where you just need to try to hold your stride together, but usually can’t; and up the last long climb, legs burning, brain unable to imagine anything but the top of the hill when you will be done; but you aren’t, you still have almost three minutes of running to do and whether you will run a good time or a bad one may not yet be decided; and finally, the long horseshoe finish you all saw on TV during the Olympics, with coaches and other athletes screaming at you to go all out, as if you weren’t already.
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\r\nAnd at the end of it all, you get a number. Last Tuesday my number was 37:25, the best number I’ve ever gotten on this test, bettering my time last year by 12 seconds. I was 16 seconds behind my brother, whose 37:09 is the new course record.
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\r\nI won’t have another test this important for five weeks, when I race my first World Cup race of the year. And after this time trial, I’m looking forward to a good result on that test as well.
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Kris Freeman, Lars Flora, and Justin Freeman.
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Written By: JFreemanDate Posted: 10/28/2004Number of Views: 286
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